


And then there was one

by batmanforeverlol



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Body Horror, Depictions of Death, Heavy Angst, It’s pretty messed up but enjoy!, No beta we die just like in general, Trauma, cosmic horror??? I guess, eldritch Beetlejuice, eldritch au, this is really weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batmanforeverlol/pseuds/batmanforeverlol
Summary: Beetlejuice is a demon or half demon to be precise. The other half? No ones really knows for sure but his last name isn’t Shoggoth for nothing!
Comments: 16
Kudos: 36





	1. To die, to sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had eldritch Beetlejuice headcanons running around and I just had to get some sort of story out of my head before I exploded. The summary is so bad but I don’t know how to summarize this. 
> 
> This is very weird and I gave it a mature rating just to be safe.
> 
> Tell me what you think so far in the comments!

He was finally alive! Everything he ever wanted and more, and of course it had to suck. This seemed to be a trend for the last couple of days. He was alive and breathing, he should be human but instead his mind was assaulted with information, sounds and smells he shouldn’t be able to know. The names of everyone dying and breathing were running through his head. He was happy, he was sad, furious, depressed, confused, it was all blending. Why could he see the room but also thirty different places in thirty different countries?

Was this being human? He didn’t thinks so but he didn’t like it, not one bit. 

He could hear everyone’s individual heartbeat but also people talking and screaming in other languages he could understand. His mouth was moving yet he couldn’t hear himself speak. 

He felt his face melting. He recognized the feeling of extra eyes and teeth on his misshapen face. The sound of static and crackling electricity was everywhere. He felt like he was being stretched thin but also tightly compressed. It suddenly all stopped when a sharp pain erupted from his chest. 

He looked down and he could see a sharp metal point extruding from it. His blood was black and it was on his suit and the floor. Since when was he on his knees?

“Heh, cool trick. I see what you did there!” His voice sounded strained, even to him. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the growing stream of blood that was slowly staining its descent. 

The onslaught of information and images was slowing down and becoming blurry. Fading into the background and into obscurity, his head felt weirdly empty. 

“You killed him!” Their voices were becoming muffled, like they were speaking from behind a thick screen of glass. 

“With bad art!” He felt heavy, since when does he feel heavy? He also felt loose, like his arms and legs were made of string. 

“That...feels...meaningful.” He managed to talk even though his mouth was spilling blood (it had a weird salty taste) and his jaw felt like it was about to fall.

He managed to push the rod out of his chest but it felt like a slow and excruciating process. It had pierced things he never had to worry about. It grated and moved through him and he felt violently violated. Like he shouldn’t know the exact texture of his lungs or how they seemed to shake with every breath. 

The gaping hole in his chest was overflowing with blood now that there wasn’t anything from stopping it. He should have worn black, that way it wouldn’t be so noticeable. When was the last time he bled like this? 

He fell to the side and the blood was going down his throat. He hadn’t even gotten used to breathing and he was already choking. Yet he didn’t have the strength or will to cough. This wasn’t like sleeping, everything was burning and it hurt like nothing else had. He decided then and there that the dead were the biggest liars. 

“Now he’s recently deceased!” Lydia stood over the body of her friend and the longer it took for him to get up, the bigger the pit in her stomach started to become. 

He was laying on his side and his head was tilted upwards. That horrible black blood was still spreading, staining his tacky suit and the floor. Her hands were covered by the stuff and so was her dress. She took a step back once the blood started to soak up her shoes. 

“BJ? Beetlejuice? This isn’t funny, cut it out!” She shouted at his too still body, hoping the shaking in her hands would stop. His eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at her. 

“Um… Mr. Beetlejuice?” Adam asked from where he and Barbara had taken refuge. They were holding each other but they couldn’t take their eyes away from the figure on the floor. 

“...Mr. Beetlejuice is everything alright?” His voice shook almost as bad as he and the dread of realization filled his core. 

The blood had created a void around his body. A physical aura of death that stained those who got too close. It continued to grow and spread like a misshapen web of spilled ink, until it stopped. No more blood would leave his body and the stillness confirmed whichever doubts still lingered. The silence and stillness of the scene could be compared to that of a grave. The tension in the air was almost enough to quell the stench of copper. 

Before any shouts of disbelief and horror could escape one's lungs, the void breathed. 

The darkness rose from the ground and shrunk back down towards the floor in its exhale. It inhaled and the sound of air rushing towards something was audible. 

His body seemed to melt into the darkness, like he was sinking lower and lower into the void. The red suit was overrun by black and he was slowly disappearing. Lydia rushed towards him but she was pulled back into the arms of her father who moved her further away from the ordeal. His eyes were the last to go under and what was left was a moving pool of black. 

“Is….is his blood breathing?” Adam seemed to be the only one able to talk but he was right in his assumption. It’s breaths were short and ragged. They shook and caused itself to tremble. 

It was mesmerizing. 

It was sickening. 

Adam moved. Something wasn’t right. There was something telling him to go there, to fix it. 

He let go of Barbara and started to walk towards it but a tug from the back of his shirt stopped him mid step. He glanced at his wife who was staring at him like he had grown a second head. “It’s going to be okay.” He didn’t have the strength to smile but something in his eyes reassured her just the same. 

He stood in front of the blood, the tip of his shoe just centimeters from it. He went down on one knee, his hand hovering above the moving blackness. 

“Beetlejuice is that you?” The silence was only interrupted by the struggling sounds of breath. “It’s me Adam. I’m asking if this is you. Can you do something to show that this is you Beetlejuice?” 

The pool only continued to breathe and Adam let out a heavy sigh. He moved to bring up his hand but the darkness lurched forward and held it in place. 

“What the fuck!”

“Jesus Christ!” 

Adam could only scream and tried to move away but the darkness did nothing more but hold his arm. It wrapped itself around it and held tighter. This wasn’t right, he wasn’t alive, he wasn’t physical, it shouldn’t be able to touch him. 

“WAIT!” He didn’t get the chance to say anything else as he was pulled face first into the darkness.


	2. In the mouth of darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not so alone in the abyss

Adam was breathing. He didn’t realize it until he saw the movement of his chest. It felt familiar, like wearing an old pair of shoes or gloves. In the last couple of days he’d come to miss the thoughtless action. You really don’t truly appreciate things until they’re gone. He felt alive again and what a truly weird sensation it was. 

He kept his eyes closed and relished in the feeling of having a weight on his chest and breath in his lungs. The warmth from the blood running through his veins and his heart beating like it had never stopped. He felt at peace. 

He opened his eyes and he was dying, he felt like he was dying again. He could see him and Barbara fall through the floorboards and into the basement. He could feel his skull fracturing, the blood staining skin and clothes, his bones twisting and breaking. He saw their bodies, he felt the pain he hadn’t felt before, this is what it felt to truly die. He couldn’t do anything else but scream. 

There was darkness around him. It was never ending and all encompassing. The pain had stopped and so had the visions. This time there was no beating heart to comfort him or breathing lungs to ground him. He wasn’t sure if he was laying on the ground or floating but he tried to stand up either way. 

“Beetlejuice?” His voice echoed and it felt louder than he intended it to be. He looked around but there was nothing. He could close his eyes and the view would be the same. “Beetlejuice are you here? Are you okay?” Nothing but silence and the bouncing echoes. With nothing else to do he started walking. 

One would think they were walking in place because of the unchanging scenery, he couldn’t say much about the ground beneath him except it felt like it should be solid. He tried not to think about it much, it was pretty confusing already. 

He could be walking for hours or maybe it was minutes. He already didn’t have a good sense of time because of the whole being dead thing but this was pushing it. There was no lighting around the place, if where he was was a place, and his watch seemed to be frozen. Everything was dull and unchanging until something shifted in the corner of his eye. 

He whipped around to face it and there was a figure standing not too far from him. It didn’t look like it had seen him or noticed his presence. He walked towards it, unsure but in need for answers. 

As he got closer he could see the figure stood a little taller than his knees and the darkness seemed to swirl around it. Its outline looked like a person but their body parts seemed to twirl and meld into each other. Too many eyes, misshapen arms and hands, mouths with too many teeth or fangs, they seemed to melt and shift with the space around them. 

“Beetlejuice?” Adam let out a whisper of disbelief he couldn’t quite contain. Especially not from what he was gazing at. The figure stiffened but turned around and Adam was faced with different faces blending and distorting but never staying still enough for him to recognize. 

“Who are you?” The voice was loud inside his head and it was heavy with distortion and static but even then it sounded like it belonged to a child. “Who are you?” The voice was louder and it caused a stinging behind his eyes. 

“I’m Adam! Are you Beetlejuice?” 

“What's Beetlejuice? I’ve never met you before?” 

“Are you...Lawrence?” 

“Yeah….” The voice was quieter and the stinging left. 

“Then we have met before! You said something about being me and my wife’s guide or something! You-“

“I was your guide!” They got closer to Adam and their voice was clearer and was covered in excitement. “I always wanted to be a guide but mom says that it’s a job for worthless human souls and that I should focus on getting a position worthy of a demon or something like that. Wait, you’re here and not in the Netherworld?”

“Yeah.”

“And your handbook?” The growing collection of eyes all moved in different directions trying to find the book or anything resembling it. “Give the recently deceased their handbook and direct them straight to the Netherworld, I really am a screw up! If you’re here and you don’t have your handbook it means I messed up and mom’s going to be so mad!” 

“Don’t worry! If you can help me get out of here your mom doesn’t have to know!” Adam felt kind of quilty using the ‘kid’ like this, even if they weren’t Beetlejuice and just shared an unfortunate first name, he needed to get out of whatever this was and fix things. By ‘fix things’ he meant finding Beetlejuice and bring back or at least seeing if he was okay so that Lydia didn’t have to worry about having murdered somebody. 

“Really?” The figure shifted but looked at them hopefully.

“Yep! I won’t tell a soul!” Adam could see that the corners of the mouths that had manifested had curled upwards and they laughed. It was clear and infectious and Adam chuckled with them.

“Okay, I’ll help you out! I’ll be your guide again and this time I’m going to do it right!” Something told Adman that if they had a normal physical body, they would be puffing out their chest and lifting their head high. 

“Lead the way!” He couldn’t help but smile, yes he was trapped in an endless void with a being who maybe wasn’t Beetlejuice but at least he wasn’t alone anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!


	3. What’s this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much you guys for all your wonderful comments!!! I hope you enjoy this chapter!!

The darkness was unchanged as the both of them walked, or more precisely, Adam followed. His guide would take turns and round corners but the emptiness around them just made it seem like he was walking in place very strangely. 

“So, what exactly is this place?” Having more information about everything seemed like a good idea at the moment. After everything he’s seen he wanted to be at least somewhat prepared for what may come up. Plus, a little conversation never hurt anybody. 

“You don’t know? I mean it makes sense that you don’t if you didn’t know who I was when you saw me. Wait a minute, how did you end up here?” They stopped and turned to look at Adam, extra eyes and all. 

“Huh?” Adam stopped next to them. They took a step away from him and eyed them warily. “Oh, it was an accident, at least I think it was. I was kind of pulled in.” 

“Oh okay!” They continued walking as if nothing had happened. The previously present air of suspicion had all but disappeared as if it was never there. 

“Soo…” Adam didn’t know how to breach the topic without having to ask them again but he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. 

“What? RIGHT! I interrupted myself, I do that a lot. This is where I go when mom is… you know...in one of her moods. I don’t know why but she can’t always find me here, it’s nice.”

“It’s a safe space.” Adam told himself more than anyone.

“Yeah! A safe space! I can hide and make my own places and stuff it’s fun! Plus I can go anywhere and see different people!” They were moving around with more energy and were clearly excited. 

“Really? Then why is everything all dark?” 

“Dark? Oh you can’t see it! Of course you're newly dead! Even if you were a demon you would have trouble. Let me try something!”

One of their multiple hands got closer to one of their eyes and a disgusting ripping sound broke the silence. 

“Lawrence what are you doing?!” 

“Hold still!” The figure held up the now unmoving eye. 

“Wait-“ Something cold and wet touched his forehead and then he felt the most incredible pain, like his head was splitting in two. He couldn’t scream or move but it subsided. All that was left was a dull headache. 

“Sorry about that, but you should be able to see alright now! Open your eyes.” Adam did as he as told and he saw a room. It was bizarre and a disorganized mess but a room nonetheless. 

There was light! He didn’t realize it straight away since the transition from complete darkness to this wasn’t painful. 

“What did you do?” He reached up to touch his forehead but he felt something move. “Lawrence…is your eye on my forehead?” 

“Yep!” He looked down and saw a child. A child with clawed hands and feet, green hair and sharp teeth. They looked dirty and there seemed to be moss on their skin. Their skin was a grayish purple color but they had two eyes and a single mouth. Their face didn’t shift and nothing about them changed in the moment that Adam stopped to look at them. 

“Why?” 

“So that you can see! Normal ghosts and demons can't see this place or this version of me unless I focus very hard but I wanted you to be able to! Don’t worry the rest won’t be able to see it unless you want them.” 

“I….um….thank you…?” Adam was in a momentary shock because of two things; firstly, that he now had an eye on his forehead and secondly that this child had ripped their own eye out and gave it to him. 

“You’re welcome! Let’s go, we have more ground to cover!” They took a hold of Adam’s hand and dragged him along. 

Adam couldn’t focus on where they were going or on the strange scenery around him because he was too focused on how small the hand guiding him was. Their palm felt calloused, it shouldn’t be, this child looked so young. Their tiny claws gently touched his skin, they didn’t scratch or prick him. They were being careful not to hurt him, he realized. 

“Lawrence, did you rip out your eye for me?” Adam asked quietly. 

Lawrence stopped and titled his head. “Yeah.” 

“Did it hurt?” 

Lawrence looked down at the floor and kept walking, pulling Adam along. “...yeah.” 

It was Adam that stopped this time. “Then why do it? I know you’re trying to help me and I thank you, truly, but you can’t go and mutilate yourself on my behalf!” Adam didn’t realize he had raised his voice but he felt the hand tighten their grip on his. 

They were still looking at the floor but their shoulders were brought up to their ears. They stood stiffly, as if anticipating something.

“I’m sorry Lawrence I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.” He went down to their level and placed his free hand on their shoulder. 

“It didn’t hurt much, I’ve done it before and so has mom.” They mumbled. 

It was Adam’s turn to stiffen. “That still doesn’t make it okay. It’s not okay to hurt yourself and for others to hurt you.” 

“Even if it’s mom?” They looked at him then, with their now purple hair and wide watery eyes. 

“Especially if it’s your mom.” The kid stared at him for a second and Adam didn’t know what to do. They let go of his hand which caused him to mildly panic but that was replaced when they hugged him. Adam was taken back but he smiled and hugged them back. “It’s going to be okay, kid.” 

They hugged him a little tighter. “Does this mean we’re friends?” They whispered. 

Adam chuckled, “Sure thing kid.” 

Their head starts turning green but there’s still specs of purple here and there. They pull away from the hug and go back to holding Adam’s hand. 

“Let’s go, we're almost there!” Both them kept walking and Adam took the time to see that they left whatever room they were in and instead were walking down a hallway with multiple doors. 

“Where do all these doors go-“ 

“LAWRENCE!” A shrill voice rang in his head and it was so loud it caused him to fall to his knees. 

There was a click and the darkness returned, he couldn’t see the weird room or hallway, just the same emptiness from before. 

“LAWRENCE WHERE ARE YOU?” They cringed but they straightened up ones they saw the state he was in. 

“That’s my mom! I got to hide you but don’t worry I’ll be back before you know it!” 

“Wait...kid…” Adam struggled to stand up. 

“Ms. A will tell you where to go and remember you got my eye!” There was the sound of a door opening and he felt hands on his shoulder and then a push. 

He closed his eyes and he landed on something hard but smooth. When he opened his eyes again the assaulting brightness caused them to close themselves. After a few moments to try to readjust himself to light, he saw that instead of unending darkness he was in the middle of a hallway with black and white tiles and bright blue lighting.


End file.
